Forum:Temporary forums/Trailers

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Opening post

On this Wiki, it has been long held that "trailers" cannot be valid sources as they don't tell narratives of their own, or some variation thereof. And yet, in the years since, the BBC has released what some editors have defined as "narrative trailers", type of trailer that presents an all-new unique narrative, but because these stories have been called trailers, they've been declared invalid sources, and the policy has never changed despite obviously needing to do so. In this thread, as for once I actually feel the most qualified person on this Wiki to talk about this, I aim to explain many things.

But not to say trailers should be valid. Trust me, let me explain, I'm going somewhere with this.

Context

I'm not sure specifically when trailers were invalidated, but I believe it was at a time when the only trailers that had been released by the BBC were those "Next Time" trailers that accompanied the 2005 revival of Doctor Who; now, it does make sense that these should be invalid, as they often contained misleading information. As Wikipedia put it: "Some trailers use "special shoot" footage, which is material that has been created specifically for advertising purposes and does not appear in the actual film." Obviously, as evidenced by the existence of this very thread, things have evolved and flat-out invalidating trailers seems to be a problem.

Currently, I am studying a Level Four Creative Enterprise course (equivalent to the first year of a degree) at college. Now, you may ask, "what the cruk has this got to do with trailers?" Well, the fun thing is, I've been studying brand marketing, and a lot of that is based around promotional videos. In fact, I'm making one. (Spoilers!) Now, I've done research into promotional videos, and there are over ten types of them. From this knowledge, I cannot help but actually cringe at how this Wiki covers trailers, and the frankly bizarre language that has been created to refer to things such as "narrative trailers".

Breakdown and reclassification

Trailers should remain invalid. Yes, you heard me. No, I'm not stupid. But then, at the same time, sources such as Step Into the 80's!, the 2009 BBC Christmas idents, Season 17, The Journey, The Universe is Calling, etc, should all be valid. In order to explain this seeming contradiction, let me first share some definitions of what a trailer actually is.

"an advertisement for a film or a television or radio programme, consisting of short parts taken from it"Cambridge Dictionary
"a selected group of scenes that are shown to advertise a movie"Merriam-Webster
"A trailer for a film or television programme is a set of short extracts which are shown to advertise it."Collins

Now let's define something else. I'm sure you'll be able to understand where I'm going with this now.

"One creative form of video advertisement is to embed your brand into a short film. That’s right—a short-length movie complete with characters and a story."99designs
"Branded films are short videos made by brands that are used as a marketing tool. [...] They are entertainment focused, but can be either fiction or documentary."Green Buzz Agency

It should also be noted that trailers (albeit under American law, I'm not sure about British) cannot be over two and a half minutes long.source

File:Bernice Summerfield Dead and Buried
This is a "promotional mini-episode".

File:A return to Skaro for the First Doctor... File:Doctor Who- Series 12 Trailer Now, all of this is to say: what we define as "narrative trailers" are not, by definition, trailers. They're branded short films. In fact, the term "narrative trailer" does not exist. We've made it up! Its roots are pretty clearly derived from "oh but Mr Admin, why can't this trailer with the Fourth Doctor and a Prime Computer be valid, it's got a narrative!" And bam, "narrative trailer" is born. In the real world, outside of this Wiki, these are branded short films. And you'll find a lot of what this Wiki covers, primarily webcasts, actually falls into the "branded short film" type. All of the Tardisodes, pretty much everything in Category:Big Finish webcasts, especially stories such as Dead and Buried, and so so so much more. The term "narrative trailer" doesn't even make much sense, as most actual trailers actually have a narrative. It's kinda the point, to give you a cryptic, greatly truncated version of the final film to drum up publicity.

You may be thinking to yourself, "but doesn't the BBC and Big Finish call a lot of these stories "trailers" in the YouTube descriptions?" Yes they do, but that doesn't mean they're correct. I cannot explain why they are so intent on not picking up a dictionary, but these things are not trailers, all I can do is explain they're wrong. Hopefully that is not arrogant of me!

However, branded short film is a bit of an odd thing to call a lot of, typically really short, little DWU productions which are like little scenes and what-have-you, so I believe we should go with a term a lot of Whovians (not just Wiki-folk) are familiar with: "mini-episode" and/or "promotional mini-episodes". It has the same meaning as "branded short film", but uses terms Whovians are familiar with, which aren't Wiki-isms based around the ins and outs of our validity policies which in no way is actually relevant to our readers.

Proposal

Trailers should remain invalid. However, we reclassify all "narrative trailers" (i.e., all those that do not fit into the actual definition of "trailer"; this also includes things such as Campfire) as "promotional mini-episodes" and validate the lot of the them (unless if they fail another part of T:VS obviously). We should give them dab terms based upon our current conventions, so a promotional mini-episode released on YouTube would be "webcast", something on the telly would be "TV story", etc. Furthermore, by abandoning the term "narrative trailer" not just because it's made up and there are better terms that could be used instead, we have to remember that as non-narrative sources are now valid sources, then non-narrative promotional mini-episodes should also be valid, such as those Big Finish ones that have a character monologuing while footage of landscapes and stuff plays.

Obviously, this change essentially means that we are validating promotional sources, while keeping actual trailers invalid. This scope also allows us to validate promotional comics, such as Dr Who and the Turgids and On the Icy Edge of the Galaxy..., and promotional short stories, such as Dalek Wars. Trailers are explicitly productions that contain little to no unique content and merely present a cryptic stinger of an upcoming release, and should remain invalid for now. Promotional mini-episodes are any production released that contains a large amount of unique fiction and, by definition, is not a trailer.

As per the ruling at Tardis:Temporary forums/Archive/Overhauling image policies, proper trailers that contain no unique fictional material but do contain unique visuals, primarily Big Finish trailers and DWM preview comics are all now valid but as part of the story they are released alongside with a la cover art and interior art, so there is no need to discuss their validity here. 15:40, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

Discusssion

I fully support validating all the promotional sources that the validity of is being proposed here. We should not be treating, say, Dalek Wars the same way we treat a "Next Time" trailer. Pluto2☎ 15:48, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

Short and sweet from me, apologies, but agreed! Fractal Doctor ☎ 16:11, 18 March 2023 (UTC)
I totally support this. Time God Eon ☎ 16:13, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

I want to, first of all, thank User:Epsilon the Eternal for writing such a fantastic opening post. Really summed up this topic better than I could.

As Epsilon said, this is yet another case on our website where we had one very simple rule, that next time trailers shouldn't be covered as valid, and we've somehow extrapolated several other completely different rules from it.

The worst of this comes from our long-standing judgement saying that commercial fiction is not valid. What this has been said to mean is that fiction created to sell something else can not be covered on this wiki. What we have effectively done here is ban capitalism. Most Doctor Who spinoff media has existed to sell something else. Be it when the BBC novels were being used to boost VHS sales, or all the times Doctor Who Magazine has been used to promote the revived series.

Perhaps the most infamous recent example of this has been PROSE: Can I Help You?. This was a short story, released to tie into Time Lord Victorious, which was hidden on a glow-in-the-dark t-shirt. We currently consider it invalid because, as it was printed on clothing, it is a commercial item. As I've said elsewhere, I think stories printed on paper and sold in books are also commercial items.

To me, the most glaringly inconsistent thing on our website is that Dalek Wars (series) is invalid, while Doctor Who and the Daleks (short story) isn't. For those out of the loop, Dalek Wars was a short story series released in the 2000s to tie into bubble gum cards. DWatD was a short story series released in the 1960s to tie-into candy cigarettes. Look me in the face and tell me why this contradiction exists.

The answer is that, in my opinion at least, 1960's commercialism is seen as something cute and worth highlighting, while 2000s commercialism has been judged in an unfit way.

To me, this "rule" actually stands as a major contradiction to T:VS, as rule 2 is entirely about stories being commercially licensed. Oh, so a story has to be commercial to be valid, right? Oh, but it can't be too commercial. It has to be commercial fiction but not too commercial as fiction. Sure, okay.

A big topic we have to talk about here is what we will do if this OP passes. I think an obvious point here is that we are accepting that "trailers," as in collages of scenes from a future release, are still invalid. But a piece of promotional material showing entirely original content is not something that should be invalid. The small hiccup this creates is that there are a few things on the wiki that have the (trailer) DAB, which obviously need this removed.

The second issue is that I don't think everything that is promotional but isn't a trailer should be validated via this debate. Rather, I think once we remove this as a universally interdict for inclusion, we need to return to the Four Little Rules at T:VS. Some things will still warrant discussion.

To write down some of my thoughts, I've made my own sandbox for reference. Here I've listed out as many examples as I can count, sorted into three main categories: fiction that should be automatically validated if this thread passes, fiction that likely would need its own debate, and stories which I do not personally consider as viable for validation (mostly due to failing Rule 4).

Another point I make is that trailers with unique footage, such as Doctor Who and the Ambassadors of Death and Death of the Doctor (trailer), are still "trailers" by definition, and newly recorded material does not cancel that out.

There's a lot of things to talk about here. For instance, if something like The Trip of a Lifetime and all neighboring ads capable of passing Rule 4? I encourage users to use my OP as a sampling of topics for things we need to discuss, and please bring it up to me if I missed out on anything caught in this discussion. OS25🤙☎️ 16:16, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

I support the validation of not-really-trailers-but-still-called-trailers; we need Doctor, Doctor, Doctor validated. Cookieboy 2005 ☎ 19:29, 18 March 2023 (UTC)
Just to clarify, as I've been going through the history of the wiki (it's all commented out, look at the source code), I haven't yet found the decision that made trailers invalid. I have found references to merchandise being invalid. (Though it's taken almost as a given.) Now, the way the threads in question are set up (the reference was on a thread started in 2005, but was made in 2009) means that I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that the causation here is backwards. I think it's merchandise rules that led to trailers being invalid. Or at the very least they're completely separate from one another. See User:Tangerineduel in Forum:The original inclusion debates:
There is no context for the merchandise to have canon, they are an object rather than a 'work'. Everything that is considered canon has content that can give the text context within the wider DW Universe. You can read a novel, watch a TV show, listen to an audio drama. A piece of merchandise, or specifically a figure is an object from a text, its meaning is given definition from its source text.
As you can see, the reasoning here doesn't really seem applicable to trailers in any way, you can watch a trailer. So either the rules around trailers came after, or came from an entirely different source.
As far as the OP is concerned, I'm not sure I know enough about the reasons we invalidated promos in the first place to have a strong stance. But I'm not convinced this is cut and dry, for one reason. Friend from the Future (TV story) introduces significant new narrative content, due to being deleted scenes from the episode. Is this a trailer or a short film? Najawin ☎ 19:52, 18 March 2023 (UTC)
I feel Friend from the Future should be valid regardless of this trailer thread, as The Pilot was written around it to remain in continuity. It also is not a trailer by definition, as it isn't a promotional compilation of scenes from all of The Pilot; it's just an extended sequence of a single scene. (Heck, Friend from the Future could easily just be validated under Rule Four By Proxy...) 20:20, 18 March 2023 (UTC)
I'm unconvinced about R4bp. I feel that validating FftF is likely to be controversial, given the context. Which is why I'm a bit skeptical here. Najawin ☎ 20:30, 18 March 2023 (UTC)
Friend from the Future is not a deleted scene, it's an entirely separate production. At one point, all of the dialogue was going to be in The Pilot, but not a frame of the material filmed for FftF was ever going to be in The Pilot, and Moffat intentionally kept in just enough material to show "where it fits". You can't call it a "deleted scene" because it was never going to be in The Pilot.
By the definition given in this thread, and used everywhere else in the world, Fftf is a mini-episode, not a trailer. It can't be a trailer because there are no clips from series 10 in the episode. And the reason is because Friend from the Future was filmed before anything actually used in Series 10.
But as I said in my sandbox that you clearly glanced at, FftF is not a part of this forum because so many random reasons were given to make it invalid in 2017. And I don't find your reasoning very satisfying. We can't validate commercial stories because some have unique narrative details? How is that different from saying "We can't validate Lungbarrow because it has details not in the TV show"?
The point isn't that all of these stories should blankly be valid without debate, as I said earlier. The point is that something being an advertisement, something being merchandise, and something being commercial fiction should not be universally disqualifying for it being covered on the Wiki. Or even, selectively disqualifying, which is a more accurate description of the entirely inconsistent way that we have been enforcing this.
Sorry if I sound annoyed, but you're essentially arguing about an entirely different forum topic at the moment. OS25🤙☎️ 20:34, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

"And I don't find your reasoning very satisfying. We can't validate commercial stories because some have unique narrative details?"

Politely, this is not what I said. I said I'm skeptical of the specific lines Epsilon drew (unique narrative details) for trailers/minisodes because a certain story fell on one side of them and I felt that it was going to be a controversial placement. I don't know enough about the reasoning invalidating trailers to have a strong stance on another demarcation. But this one seems a bit sketchy to me.

Given that I'm the person who first mentioned validating Can I Help You?, it seems rather unlikely that this point would generalize to commercial stories more generally. Insofar as I mentioned them, it was to make a historical point about the origins of merchandise policy vs trailer policy. Najawin ☎ 20:42, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

Well I apologise if I misread your statement there.
Friend from the Future, as I recall, was disqualified for three or four things. One of the most important was simply that when Moffat wrote it, he didn't know if it would "count" as it were. Thus, it failed our Rule 4, as Rule 4 by Proxy was not codified yet. So it wasn't just because it was a promotional video. Thusly, declining to qualify it as a trailer does not automatically make it valid. In fact, there is currently an OP being written for a future forum debate about this topic.
And again, if something is controversial we should leave it for future debate. The Trip of a Lifetime is a better example of a promotional video that is not a trailer that probably shouldn't be made valid without its own debate.
Your historical theory about this topic actually dating back to merchandise is relevant. I always raise an eye when I'm told the source of some rule came from a debate about Doctor Who canonicity. So I still believe creating rules more consistent with our actual policy is a good thing.
When I say "consistent," what I mean this... If this forum does not pass and this rule is not revised, I recommend we make several pages invalid. For instance, if A return to Skaro for the First Doctor... is a trailer, then so are all of the Tardisode releases. And so are most stories released online. If Dalek Wars (series) is merchandise and thus instantly invalid, then lets also treat Doctor Who and the Daleks (short story) the same way.
All I am suggesting is that we actually follow the judgement of T:NPOV. This rule isn't consistently followed on the website. So either we need to fix the rule, or follow through and invalidate dozens or hundreds of stories. OS25🤙☎️ 20:55, 18 March 2023 (UTC)
Oh yeah, if we don't make promotional mini-episodes valid, then the reasoning for it should be consistently applied accross the Wiki, so we should invalidate everything from VNA preludes to 99% of Big Finish webcasts and all of the Doctor Who tie-in websites. The "trailer" rule is only a facet of what the policy's scope is meant to be; so if we deem a work of fiction to have been created as primarily promotional material then we should apply this standard to everything promotional. 21:02, 18 March 2023 (UTC)
I completely support validating everything that is not factually a trailer. Danniesen ☎ 21:38, 18 March 2023 (UTC)
We will also have to change the definition on the page Trailer. Danniesen ☎ 21:41, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

Excellently written really, it has my vote as I support the notion here. StevieGLiverpool ☎ 17:52, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

While promotional stories are being discussed, what about marketing campaigns like Step Into the 80's! (TV story), The Appliance of Science (home video), etc.? I think the Prime Computer advertisements should probably be valid but I'm iffier on the Zanussi marketing campaign. I bring these up because they're also promotional sources. Pluto2☎ 01:34, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
The current understanding is that the Prime computer ads would be valid under Rule 4 by Proxy. The Zanussi ads I don't think we've really talked about, it really comes down to if you think they pass rule 4. OS25🤙☎️ 03:06, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
This is very much not the current understanding. They could be valid under R4bp, but this is less than trivial. Najawin ☎ 05:00, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
I support the original proposal in full. I oppose opening this thread up to things other than "trailers" as Pluto2 suggested on the procedural ground that such a decision should be a separate thread, in my opinion. Schreibenheimer ☎ 19:44, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

When I say "the current understanding" am referring to the Prime computer spots being directly referenced in PROSE: Christmas on a Rational Planet. Chris Cwej finds a PRIME computer bank disconnected just outside the TARDIS control room. This is a pretty cut-and-dry example of rule-4-by-proxy, as set by our former precedent. OS25🤙☎️ 20:38, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

I'm aware of the reference. I decidedly wouldn't consider that to be R4bp under current precedent, as R4bp still requires an attempt to bring the story "into continuity". There's no continuity here! It's just an Easter egg! Christmas is notorious for them! (And, indeed, this is exactly the sort of case that I was always concerned about with R4bp. I was never concerned about validating Shalka, or DCtT. But the logic used was so broad that it validated tiny little Easter eggs that were clearly just supposed to be fun jokes.) (I will say that some people do seem to be aware of this issue and are trying to avoid expanding R4bp jurisprudence - see the Shalka discussion - for which I'm thankful. But this only cuts against the idea that the Prime computer ads are obviously valid.) Najawin ☎ 20:52, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
I don't understand how this is not direct continuity to the Prime mini-episodes. It's a PRIME computer bank disconnected outside of the TARDIS control room. It's not an easter egg. It's a pretty direct reference based in continuity. OS25🤙☎️ 20:55, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

Swinging back to the Zanussi segment, I would say quickly that I've never seen sufficient evidence that it passes Rule 2. When this was brought up, I mistook the topic for Time Is Everything, which again I believe would need its own debate. OS25🤙☎️ 21:01, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

This is generally what we call an Easter egg, yes. A fun little reference for people to find, an allusion. This doesn't seriously expect us to think that the events of the ads happened. It's a nod and a wink to those who know about them. But we're clearly off topic, and this would be served better in a discussion about the minisode if and when commercial minisodes writ large can be valid. Najawin ☎ 21:03, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
To be honest, I don't see particular evidence that the Prime spots don't pass Rule 4 to begin with. They clearly take place in the DWU, and were even written by Tom Baker. And it's not really "off-topic" as this is an example of a story which is invalidated exclusively for being commercial fiction. OS25🤙☎️ 21:04, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
I'm not really sure how you're contending that they clearly take place in the DWU. Might they? Perhaps. Clearly? Absolutely not. (Hence not simply commercial fiction, there are also R4 concerns, which you even mentioned at the beginning of this discussion!) In the same way, they might pass R4bp (I don't think so) but it's certainly not obvious that they do. Najawin ☎ 21:11, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
Agreed. If, say, a Past Doctor Adventure set in the 1970s had a villain hyping up his powerful new supercomputer and then it turned out to be an ordinary Prime 200, that would be an in-joke. It might be funny to fans who remembered the advertisement but would imply no continuity connection. But what we have here is a very direct connection to the narrative situation of the advertisements: the Seventh Doctor is shown to have, in storage aboard the TARDIS, a Prime computer which he has clearly acquired at some point in the past. We know exactly when he acquired it, and what the circumstances were, because we have literally seen this happen on television in a story starring Tom Baker and Lalla Ward. The idea that this is "just an Easter egg" is baffling to me.
In Alien Bodies, Miles mentions that the Raston Warrior was a product manufactured by a company called Raston and that all the talk about its incredible power was just marketing bluster. That's an intertextual in-joke about the incongruity between its visual appearance in The Five Doctors and how the characters talk about it. But it is also a true thing about the Raston Warrior within the Doctor Who universe. Something being brief and humorous does not mean that it is a non-canonical untruth embedded within a canonical story. PintlessMan ☎ 21:18, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
Just to note, the purview of this thread has always been inclusive of any and all promotional stories and marketing campaigns. I did lump them in there, but we may as well do it all in one go as promotional stories being invalid is an obvious side effect of the invalidity of "trailers". 22:44, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
Indeed, as the person who pitched this forum I have always seen "commercial fiction," "fiction that advertises" and "fiction which is also merchandise" to be three sides to the same dimensionally-transcendant coin. OS25🤙☎️ 00:20, 21 March 2023 (UTC)
To clarify Epsilon, are you saying the intent of this thread is to throw out Merchandise Rules entirely, and let in things like Can I Help You? Because I'm not against this idea, I'm quite for it, but I don't think your post establishes the relevant argument for doing it. Najawin ☎ 00:24, 21 March 2023 (UTC)
Najawin, you can argue that Epsilon presented the history in slightly the wrong order. But you can't argue that he didn't include this topic in his opening post, nor that there hasn't been discussion and consensus on the topic. OS25🤙☎️ 00:30, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

Actually, I don't think Epsilon did. "Promotional stories" are distinct from "stories on merchandise", or what have you. I also note that just now he still referred to the former, it was you referring to the latter, and I asked him to clarify as a result. Najawin ☎ 00:40, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

I fully agree with this OP (and am happy to go with either it's language of "promotional mini-episodes" or whatever an admin decides), and would like to tangentially vocalise my support of User:PintlessMan's point that something being non-serious does not make it "non-canonical". Jokes that take place in stories set in the DWU, should be considered to take place in the DWU and refert to DWU events, if that wasn't obvious. Cousin Ettolrhc ☎ 06:43, 21 March 2023 (UTC)
I’d just like to say again that I fully support this proposal and would like to add that it was clear to me that what OttselSpy25's recent arguments were, were also part of the Epsilon's opening post. Danniesen ☎ 07:30, 21 March 2023 (UTC)
I felt the accusation was ridiculous and didn't merit addressing, but let's do so, since apparently it wasn't. My objection has nothing to do with canon. Indeed, I think the insistence on validating everything in this way is part of a canon mentality! It's not entirely clear how R4bp is to be applied. Part of the problem with that thread is that there were two competing attempts to define R4bp, neither of which were quite as fleshed out as they needed to be, and the closing post didn't decide between them, providing no guidelines for the proposal, using vague language like "pull[ing] another source into the DWU". Does The Doctor simply having a Prime computer pull the ad into the DWU? I'm less than convinced. I don't care that the Easter egg is humorous, I don't care that the advert is ridiculous, I care that valid != canon, and R4bp is still so messy that it's nontrivial to say it's obvious that this advert qualifies. Najawin ☎ 19:19, 21 March 2023 (UTC)
In spite of your complaints, R4BP is not a theoretical part of policy. It is codified in T:VS. And I disagree with the language you seem to always use, which implies R4BP is some temporary fling and not active precedent in action.
All we are saying here is that we have an instance where there is no evidence that something DOESN'T take place within the DWU, and we have one story that directly references these events. I do not look at this as a story being "pulled into the DWU", I look at it as a clarification. We now understand this stories existence better because we can see its greater relationship to the rest of the Doctor Who universe. OS25🤙☎️ 20:16, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

Shockingly, I'm aware that it's in T:VS and that it's not theoretical. However, there's very little precedent using it, as it's relatively new, and so we have to interpret the policy based on what little exists.

I do not look at this as a story being "pulled into the DWU"

Then we're done here? That's explicitly required to happen in the closing post of Tardis:Temporary forums/Archive/An update to T:VS. If you don't think that happened, then you don't think it passes R4bp. But look, even if you're refusing to accept that closing post as definitive, and I'm not sure why you would, since that thread forms the basis of R4bp, let's just look at T:VS.

One exception to this, named "Rule 4 by proxy", occurs if a later story makes an effort to bring an otherwise invalid story back into the DWU. In these scenarios, the otherwise Rule 4-failing story may be decided to pass Rule 4 in a forum debate.

So Step Into the 80's! (TV story) would obviously need a forum thread to discuss the issue, just based on what's in T:VS. Which is what I said in the first place. Now can we please stop getting off topic? Najawin ☎ 20:32, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

This isn't off-topic, and we don't need another forum debate for this story. Your quote states that "Rule 4 by proxy" debates are needed to bring stories back into the DWU. But in this case, the Prime adverts have never been invalid for violating Rule 4. They have been invalid simply for being advertisements. This story has never been declared as a violation of Rule 4, it's never been stated or proven that it isn't set in the DWU. So if we remove the widespread ban on advertisements on the site, there is no reason for these stories to be invalid. Unless you have proof that these stories don't naturally pass Rule 4, and were not intended to be set in the Doctor Who Universe, I think it's a non-starter. In this case, the reference to the story in another book is simply evidence that, yes, in this instance where there's a lack of certainty on the topic, we have clarification that these stories do take place in the DWU. OS25🤙☎️ 20:40, 21 March 2023 (UTC)
"The current understanding is that the Prime computer ads would be valid under Rule 4 by Proxy." - This is your statement that started this entire discussion. You yourself admitted there are R4 concerns. Which I already pointed out.
In this case, the reference to the story in another book is simply evidence that, yes, in this instance where there's a lack of certainty on the topic, we have clarification that these stories do take place in the DWU.
How does this work? If there's ambiguity in one area for validity (which is based on authorial intent), not canon, and then there's another story by a different author that references the first, how can that clarify the ambiguity? Either it has authorial intent on its own, and there's no clarification, as it makes no reference to the authorial intent of the first piece, but there's now validity per R4bp, or there's no authorial intent, no clarification, and still ambiguous validity. Najawin ☎ 21:16, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

It just seems like you're disagreeing with one of our rules, and if that's the case, I'm not sure what to say. OS25🤙☎️ 19:28, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

I'm disagreeing with your interpretation of one of our rules, one in particular which is still very new, fairly vague and so needs some level of interpretation. The way you're interpreting the rule, the phrasing you're using to approach the issue, isn't found in the justification for it in the original thread nor in T:VS. (eg, the "clarification" angle, these sources aren't clarifying previous R4 intent, they are providing new intent) How this disagreement of interpretation could have arisen, given how little R4 jurisprudence there's been, and how soon after the original thread it is? I'm sure I couldn't say.
But again, I do fundamentally believe we're off topic, so can we please move back to the issue at hand? I don't want to be accused of a T:POINT violation I'm desperately trying to avoid. Najawin ☎ 20:40, 22 March 2023 (UTC)
The time has not yet come to close this thread, but I'll just pop in to offer a clarification that Najawin's interpretation of Rule 4 By Proxy is the correct one in this case; the idea of a R4PB source providing "clarification" is misleading. It is only understandable for such a misunderstanding to arise with a rule which is still relatively new; I'm looking forwarded to us running a few proper R4BP-based inclusion debates to better show how it works in practice.
However, I think the real disagreement relies on a point which I don't think Najawin has answered: namely, that if we remove the ban on commercials/trailers, there is no particular reason for the authorial intent on Step Into the 80's! to be "ambiguous". Absent concerns about commercials, the presumption should be that it's valid unless there is specific evidence otherwise, as with any other non-parodical Doctor Who minisode. Under that framing, R4BP is wholly irrelevant to this case. There simply isn't any reason for us to consider calling it {{invalid}} if we don't have a blanket ban on stories of its type.
To close off this admin intervention, being that it concerns the implementation of validity for one of the stories at issue here, this digresson is not inherently off-topic and no one who has participated in it is to be held to be in breach of T:POINT. Of course, if the consensus on this thread is that the issue should be sequestered off to its own discussion, that is wholly possible; and it would be good to see more discussion of the wider issue rather than this particular use-case. But it's not fundamentally outside the boundaries of the thread; don't worry. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 21:03, 22 March 2023 (UTC)
Politely, I do think I've answered that point.
"The current understanding is that the Prime computer ads would be valid under Rule 4 by Proxy." - This is your statement that started this entire discussion. You yourself admitted there are R4 concerns. Which I already pointed out.
I've stated this twice now. User:PintlessMan attempted to validate them using R4bp as well. It's been the stated position of people who want to validate it that it fails R4. I'm just taking this to its logical conclusion. Najawin ☎ 21:41, 22 March 2023 (UTC)
Well, yes. Those people are wrong as well in their assumptions. Sorry if I didn't make this clearer. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 21:43, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

I think my statement was "less than trivial", and I do think this is true. I suspect that Baker intended for the on screen proposal to be read more as a fun reference than something we took as a serious proposal between the two characters. Similarly, I'm sure he didn't expect us to think that Time Lord technology was inferior to a Prime Computer, given that the entire premise of the story was simply selling Prime Computers and making them out to be fantastic. With that said, the DWU is weird, and these aren't sufficient to the standards of R4 that I'd prefer we hold. With that said, my preferred standard of R4 disqualification isn't one we've always used. So some may actually think that this is disqualifying. Najawin ☎ 22:09, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

I'd like to suggest new categories also, as the marketing campaigns and teasers and trailers ones may be inaccurate for something, like, say Hashtag. What's a hashtag?.
I suggest "promotional videos" that way the teasers and trailers can literally feature them like say The NEW Doctor Who Logo (webcast) and "marketing campaigns" can just feature overviews of campaigns like NewtoWHO and Doctor Who Evergreen. 81.108.82.15talk to me 22:37, 23 March 2023 (UTC)
I agree, I think "The NEW Doctor Who Logo" isn't much of a trailer or a teaser. It's more like an announcement with video. A gif nearly. OS25🤙☎️ 00:59, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

Just chiming in to note that I've suggested [[/Promotion]] subpages for series, like Series 9 (Doctor Who)/Promotion, over at Slot 6. – n8 (☎) 14:37, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

It’s amazing to me that this is an issue everyone seems to support. That’s nice to see. Before this thread is close early, which I can see happening, I think we should have two categories “teasers” for gifs like the logo announcement and “promotional videos” for specially filmed promotional content. Those categories can be kept in marketing campaigns which should just feature campaigns. If approved. I’d be happy to sort it. 81.106.187.1talk to me 13:35, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

Conclusion

As our I.P.-using friend above notes in the last regular comment, we have a very strong consensus here. I see no reason to extend this thread when it has largely gone dormant, when we have a limited amount of slots, and still many proposals to go through. Moreover, the next proposal up at T:TF now is another one which may entail the validation of a number of sources, and I would, on the whole, prefer to avoid having two of these running at once.

This is going to be very long, for which I do apologise. Readers only looking for the essentials are advised that you "only" need to read through "Basics" and "Specifics": quite a lot of bulk here is taken up by a somewhat-digressive resolution to a debate which was, in itself, something of a digression within the thread.

Basics

Promotional fiction is now no longer {{invalid}} by default. As User:OttselSpy25 pithily summarised:

What we have effectively done here is ban capitalism. Most Doctor Who spinoff media has existed to sell something else — be it when the BBC novels were being used to boost VHS sales, or all the times Doctor Who Magazine has been used to promote the revived series.User:OttselSpy25

We just cannot assume that some kind of overriding promotional intent on something like Dalek Wars or Genetics of the Daleks means a story automatically fails Rule 4, when we make no such claim about Prequels and Tardisodes and Target novelisations. Indeed, we have frequent positive evidence of intent to be set in the DWU, as with the Time Lord Victorious CGI trailer having an entry in the grand timeline chart of the series.

User:Najawin's archeology has unearthed the following statement as the origin of the ban on promotional works:

There is no context for the merchandise to have canon, they are an object rather than a 'work'. Everything that is considered canon has content that can give the text context within the wider DW Universe. You can read a novel, watch a TV show, listen to an audio drama. A piece of merchandise, or specifically a figure is an object from a text, its meaning is given definition from its source text.User:Tangerineduel

Notwithstanding different definitions of the word "work" (surely Michelangelo's David is a "work" of art?), this is sound, but makes it very clear that applying such a rule to things that are actually narratives, things which are almost indistinguishable from Prequels and Mini-episodes and ordinary comic stories save in presentation, is overreach. Furthermore, the updating of Rule 1 to permit non-narrative fiction also shakes some of the assumptions under which this decision was made.

A lot was made in User:Epsilon the Eternal's OP about terminology. I think we mustn't overstate the case there — not just because things like American law needn't correspond to British Wiki-crafting, but also because it espouses a more prescriptivist view of language than I am comfortable condoning. The Wiki has always blazed its own path in these matters, aiming to be close to what DWU-related sources use, more than the academic standards; see for example our indiscriminate usage of italics for all source titles, rather than the complex differing standards for different genres and media that academic style guides recommend. The truth is, if a whole run of valid, licensed Doctor Who sources call themselves "trailers" in such an unshakable way that the word is used in the credits (like all the promotional Big Finish shorts whose credit is "Trailer by Chris Walker-Thomson"), we would be completely overstepping our bounds by saying "this is incorrect" and banishing all mention of that credit to BTS sections, as it seems Epsilon would see us do. A lede for something like A return to Skaro for the First Doctor... might instead read something like:

"A return to Skaro for the First Doctor... was an animated prequel to Return to Skaro created by Chris Walker-Thomson, billed as a trailer for (…)"A balanced way forward.

However, it is fairly clear that Next Time trailers and "promotional minisodes called 'trailers'" are wholly different meanings of the word. Next Time trailers will remain non-valid — we can and should continue to ban their ilk, without throwing out the baby with the bathwater. And I think Epsilon is correct that the indiscriminate ban on "trailers" started in part as an attempt to exclude the former, and the Rule 4-related justifications for the exclusion of the latter were largely post-hoc. Next Time trailers will remain non-valid.

Something which was only passingly discussed on this thread, but alluded to in our earlier T:SPOIL-reform discussion, is a corollary of this matter: some things are genuinely both works of fiction in their own right, and functional "trailers" for upcoming material. In light of our spoiler policy, I believe the wisest course forward is that promotional fiction explicitly labeled as a "trailer" or "teaser" upon release should remain off-limits for validity until whatever it is a trailer/teaser for is no longer upcoming (usually because it's been released, but the same principle would apply if whatever was being advertised was reclassified as unproduced/unreleased!).

In terms of structure, I think Category:Marketing campaigns has been a square-peg-round-hole category for years now. Valid or otherwise, a single trailer is not a "campaign". It should be made a subcategory of a broader Category:Marketing, which will also include Category:Promotional videos (as per suggestion above) and whatever other similar categories we deem to be worth creating as the need comes up. We should also do away with the dab term "(trailer)", whether for valid or invalid works. If we end the blanket ban, if we no longer treat trailers as a shadow-world completely distinct from valid or potentially-valid works in a given same medium, then "(trailer)" is no more sensical a dab term than "(prequel)" or indeed "(sequel)". We dab by medium, not by function, and we need to bring the things currently dabbed as (trailer)s in-line with that, even the ones which will remain invalid.) However, redirects can be retained for backwards-compatibility and SEO reasons. We might think Doctor Who: 50 Years is a "(TV story)" first and a trailer second, but someone looking for info on it would likely Google "Doctor Who 50 Years Trailer".

Specifics

Given broad consensus on the basic framework above, there are some minor points to be addressed.

A semi-digression on Rule 4 by Proxy and Rule 4

Also problematic in this discussion were the notorious Prime Computer advertisements. There was a lot of ultimately-misguided talk about Rule 4 By Proxy in this area of the discussion, so I want to dwell on it at a bit more length.

Some of the points made by User:Najawin about the proposed R4BP rationale struck me as a little strange. Specifically, he claimed that "there's no continuity here" about the scene in Christmas on a Rational Planet, where Cwej finds a disused Prime computer near the TARDIS control room. I can only echo PintlessMan's replies here, minus the focus on "humour" which Najawin disavowed as the crux of his disagreement:

If, say, a Past Doctor Adventure set in the 1970s had a villain hyping up his powerful new supercomputer and then it turned out to be an ordinary Prime 200, that would be an in-joke. It might be funny to fans who remembered the advertisement but would imply no continuity connection. But what we have here is a very direct connection to the narrative situation of the advertisements: the Seventh Doctor is shown to have, in storage aboard the TARDIS, a Prime computer which he has clearly acquired at some point in the past. We know exactly when he acquired it, and what the circumstances were, because we have literally seen this happen on television in a story starring Tom Baker and Lalla Ward.User:PintlessMan

A character finding a recognisable object from a past adventure, gathering dust in the very place it was last time we saw it, is a textbook example of "continuity". It's "continuity" to City of Death when, in COMIC: The One, the characters find a spare Mona Lisa in a spare room of the TARDIS among other Fourth Doctor memorabilia, and we note it as such in the "Continuity" section. It's "continuity" to An Unearthly Child when TV: Remembrance of the Daleks lingers on Susan Foreman's history book, left lying around in a classroom — even though, famously, that reference doesn't even actually make sense! This is absolutely a "continuity reference", not just an "easter egg". (It's both. The world is a complicated place where things can be two things at once. We seem to be coming back to this theme in this closing post!)

This is an important point. User:Najawin argued that "there were two competing attempts to define R4bp, neither of which were quite as fleshed out as they needed to be, and the closing post didn't decide between them, providing no guidelines for the proposal, using vague language like 'pull[ing] another source into the DWU' (…)". But the ruling on R4PB was this:

Firstly, there is the issue of authorial intent as opposed to in-text information. In general, it is safe to assume that, if information presented within a source pulls another source into the DWU, that is sufficient for validity under rule 4 by proxy as presented by Scrooge MacDuck.User:Bongo50

With the quote stating "as presented by Scrooge", I feel reasonably confident in my assertion that Bongo was ruling in favour of my interpretation, even if his own summarised rewording was ambiguous; that he was referring back to my own OP, as other closing posts have done since to avoid restating provisions and proposed policies that the OP already put perfectly plainly. To restate this view of mine, which I interpret to be the standing policy: the default is that apparent continuity to an invalid story constitutes R4PB, and we would require contrary BTS evidence to say otherwise. Something like The Tomorrow Windows would and should be R4BP-worthy evidence if not for the quote from Jonathan Morris that Najawin unearthed, or an equivalent. If a valid source includes a continuity reference to an invalid source, treating its events as Something That Happened (whether in the main timeline or not), the default is that a R4BP thread should allow it in.

So any remaining ambiguity rides on what a "continuity reference" is. And we do have a lot of precedent about what we as a Wiki call "continuity": the continuity sections we have on all our pages. It's not perfect (there are some gray areas in those sections that have been a cause for quiet debate in edit summaries, and which we'll have to spend a T:TF slot clarifying someday: things of the form "the Doctor previously visited [Historical Event] in [Three other unrelated-or-incompatible historicals]", but I don't think any school of thought would ever rule something like the Mona Lisa/history-book scenario as excessive), and that's part of why we still need to have specific debates about any R4BP proposal; but we're not flying blind here.

All of which is to say that if the Prime Computer ads were to be viewed as a potential R4BP subject, I would, in the absence of a contravening quote from Lawrence Miles, rule them valid on that basis in a heartbreat.

However, as I intervened earlier in the thread to point out, this whole thing is founded on inaccurate premises. [dramatic cough] As it was written in the Book of Rassilon T:VS:

4 If a work of fiction was intended to be set outside the DWU, then it's probably not allowed. But a community discussion will likely be needed to make a final determination.

Meaning: with the exception of a common-sense carve-out for really, really obvious parody-cases (which is incidentally also how we're carving out something like the BBC Choice ident), stories which don't break Rules 1-2-3 are assumed valid until proven otherwise by a BTS quote, not the other way round. User:Najawin considers it "less than trivial" that Step Into the 80's was intended to be set in the DWU, but its departures from conventional depictions of the DWU are not so great that it is not also less-than-trivial that it wasn't. (I do hope I didn't forget a dangling negative in that sentence.)

Put more plainly, we do not have any authorial quotes placing it outside the DWU, and I don't think it's an obvious non-starter for Rule 4 in the same way that, to be topical, Lenny Henry Regenerates into David Tennant is. Its only recorded invalidity rationale was its promotional nature. Absent that rationale, from now on, the onus is on people wanting to prove it {{invalid}}, not the other way around. It'll be validated as part of the present "slate" of immediate pingbacks from this decision, not as a specific decision on the merits of this specific case, but as a matter of course — because outside of the "promotion conflicts with Rule 4" doctrine, it's just a not-obviously-parodical licensed TV story with no "it doesn't take place in the DWU" authorial quotes, and those are valid by default.

Of course, an exclusion debate could then be proposed, if anyone believed they had positive evidence that it fails Rule 4. However, as per the hypothetical R4BP above, that would merely switch its rationale for validity, not induce actual invalidity, so I'm dubious of the usefulness of such an endeavour. Still, pitch what thou wilt; that's what the proposals table is for!

This situation is admittedly very complicated, so for the benefit of people who feel rather lost in these reams and reams of text, I've made a decision tree outlining the status of Step Into the 80's!'s validity. I hope it's helpful.

  • Step Into the 80's Validity Diagram.png

Incidentally, the same rationale applies for Meet the Thirteenth Doctor (and its own prequel/teaser, It's Almost Time, which appears to still lack a page — that thing there). We don't need, contrary to OttselSpy25's speculation on the "commercial fiction sandbox", "a future story (…) to give context to what's going on here". The Thirteenth Doctor wearing a hoodie and returning to her TARDIS in a nondescript forest are not, to put it mildly, facts so wildly out of whack with continuity that common-sense Rule 4 concerns even begin to apply. Now that we've done away with the "promotional intent conflicts with Rule 4" doctrine, this is, in the absence of any exclusionary Rule 4 quotes from its creators and/or the Beeb, no more or less than a Thirteenth Doctor BBC TV minisode with an ambiguous timeline placement.

If a colour-blind TV-viewer would see nothing Rule-4-teasing about these skits, should we really be that worried?

And to round back to the last bullet point of the list in "Specifics," I think this also applies to The Future Is At Your Fingertips. The red TARDIS is peculiar, but it's no more than peculiar. Nothing else in the skit flags them as parody-like or not in continuity. I personally suspect that it was as simple as the difficulty of sourcing a blue, British police-box prop, and one is meant to overlook that it's the wrong kind of phone box in the same way that, as was ratified in the Forums, at the end of the 2017 Shada where the visibly-elderly Tom Baker reprises the Fourth Doctor, we should simply overlook his sudden and unavoidable shift in appearance, just as much as we overlook boom mics and the like.

But for an alternative perspective, the last of these skits does have the Doctor stating that his box is "out of order"; to spell out the obvious, TV: Attack of the Cybermen, among others, has shown us the Ship turning into a variety of other disguised appearances distinct from the blue box as a result of a malfunction. Either way, I think the conjunction of these two possibilities, improvised off the top of my head, shows that the discrepancy is by no means far-out enough to justify default invalidity. So once again: if someone wants to open a different debate to rule them invalid, they can, and this time there's no R4BP rationale waiting in the wings to render such an effort moot. But this should start off as valid until and unless proven otherwise.

Final thoughts

Thank you to everyone who's read through all this. If you're exhausted from having read it, how do you think I feel… But sometimes, one really has to be thorough.

…And no, this isn't an April Fools' closure! I may be one to commit to the bit, but — without having checked — I think this is the longest closing post I've ever written. Certainly Top 5. Even I have my limits! Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 19:14, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

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